


i can barely hear myself think most days

by SociopathicArchangel



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: AH YES, Broken Reality, Confusion, Gen, finknor giving me so much material to write about while i lose sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: Sometimes he is one version of himself and then again, he is the other.





	i can barely hear myself think most days

i.

When Cecil wakes, there is no warmth beside him on the bed.

He doesn’t see why anything is wrong with this. But only for a moment, only for just a moment.

When that moment passes, he shoots right up, eyes wide and breaths short, panicking as he turns towards Carlos’ side of the bed. (Carlos, yes, _that_ was the name. That was his _husband’s_ name, how could he forget?)

The space is empty and the pillows are not dented, the blanket is not covering any warm body –

Cecil blinks and Carlos is there. The world doesn’t shift, not exactly, but his heart does. It shoots up to his throat and he can barely speak, can barely breath, out of relief.

Carlos peers up at him through eyes still clouded with sleep and hunts for his glasses on the dresser. “Cecil?” he asks once he’s put them on, trying to squint past the fog of drowsiness. “Are you okay?”

Cecil shakily raises his hands to touch his husband’s face, feeling the warm skin underneath his fingertips and lets out a sigh that sounds like a cry.

“I’m fine,” he says. He is not. “I’m fine.”

 

 

ii.

He reaches for – coffee, tea, water, alcohol, sugar, cyanide – before the headache and blurring images prove too much that he just walks over to the tap and lets his hand hover over it, unsure of how to proceed. Does he just turn the faucet? Ridiculous. You didn’t turn faucets, you…you…

You turned faucets.

Except nobody really uses taps anymore, all of the taps in the house are rusted and broken and old, because the water has been unusable for years. The safest anyone gets around here is rain – except it doesn’t rain here because this is the desert? And the faucets aren’t broken, Carlos is using one right now.

Cecil’s head swivels towards the direction of the bathroom. The water is poisoned. Always has been since _that_ time. But he’s not using it right now, who is using it –

Cecil nearly rips the faucet off with his bare hands. He settles for burying his nails into the tiles of the sink.

 

 

iii.

When he looks out of the window, there is nothing but a stretch of empty, dry land that still looks a little blackened.  If he squints hard enough he can see outlines of piles of rubble that were quite possibly once buildings.

(No, he knows they were once buildings. Of course he does. He’s lived through this.)

There is no city hall. There is no radio station. There is no Night Vale.

(Wait, a town named Night Vale? That couldn’t be right.)

He pulls back the curtains and sits on the sofa, not even worrying if the furniture will decide to devour him. It won’t. It never will. Why would furniture devour people?

He puts his face in his hands and wonders about the noise coming from a few rooms. There’s nobody else in the house but him.

 

 

iv.

When he sees Carlos that dinner, he nearly falls out of his chair. Instead he just stares at the man and wonders why he isn’t towering over him, a majestic giant that once destroyed his town.

Then he remembers. Carlos looks at him with worry and asks if he is okay. He says he’s fine. He is not.

 

 

v.

He is standing in an empty radio station and he knows it should have people in it. But there’s nobody there. He picks up a stapler and weighs it in his hand, ready to fight should –

Should what?

There is no attack on Night Vale. Night Vale is fine.

He sees light behind his eyelids when he blinks and steels his resolve. He is the Voice of this town. He will not let an unholy Smiling God –

He drops the stapler and sinks to the floor, crying.

 

 

vi.

He thinks about visiting his sister, except…he doesn’t have a sister. He has a brother, who should probably not be out there and should be taking care of himself.

But he has a niece. He has a wonderful niece named Janice Carlsberg, and he has a brother-in-law (and best friend?) named Steve Carlsberg and he _has a sister named Abigail Palmer-Carlsberg, he does not have a brother._

Outside, he hears Cal’s car park. He goes to greet him. There is no one outside.

 

 

vii.

He stops himself when he goes to the medicine cabinet to pick up masks. There is no need for masks. There are holes in the sky right now but there’s hardly any threat of his lungs collapsing from the air outside. He slowly closes the cabinet and lets his hand linger there, forehead creased in thought.

He almost expects a mirror when he goes back to the sink.

 

 

viii.

“Fifteen minutes –”

He startles. He’s almost positive someone called him, but it could just be somebody else they were calling. His name is not –

Is not –

 

 

ix.

He doesn’t remember his name.

 

 

x.

He reaches for his pens – damn the rules, if the tears in reality are giving him _pens_ he will use them – and writes down furiously, almost tearing the pages. When he crushes one pen between his fingers, he looks at the shards of plastic buried into his skin, and looks at the ink flowing freely into the pages, looks at his dark purple/red/starlight blood mixing with the black. It takes him a moment to process that his tears are falling onto the mess.

He doesn’t know where he really is anymore, and he thinks he knows, but he looks outside and he thinks and the memories are shifting, the landscape is changing, the sky is flickering, and people are there and not there at the same time. His name changes. His voice changes. He changes.

Sometimes he is one version of himself and then again, he is the other.

 

 

xi.

He drives all the way out to the desert before he remembers that he has a home in Night Vale and that there are tears in the sky above and that he has a husband waiting for him at home.

He checks his phone. There are – 87, 63, 45, 12, 6, 0 – missed calls.

 

 

xii.

“Welcome to…”

This is the first time he falters at his opening. He’s not sure who he’s talking to and why he’s here in the radio studio, and he doesn’t know where he is. The town is destroyed, why is he still broadcasting?

He clenches his fists until he can feel his skin tear.

He is in – Desert Bluffs, Pine Cliffs, Red Mesa, King City, A Dark Planet Lit By No Sun –

Night Vale. Yes.

“Welcome to Night Vale.”

He is not sure who he is welcoming. He is not sure who is listening.

 

 

xiii.

“How is the future?”

“Desolate.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: aseraphfell.tumblr.com  
> twitter: @LeviticusAW  
> youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/kageroujo


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